Friday, February 27

Firstly, I have no idea what you people in Mallorca are doing right, but holy Moses on the mount, go to a Jonathan concert this go round. Tickets are 2 euros! For a second there, I thought the American dollar had really taken a dive, but clearly God just smiles on the isle of Mallorca. I'm a little jealous, I won't lie.

Okay, now on to real things. I searched and did not find this posted here, but we all remember how great my search skills are, so if it's been done before, I apologize and bear with me. It is one of my favorite interviews of all, from December of 1996, involving a 2 a.m. phone call from a train station, as, naturally, this is when Jonathan would get the urge to call. Josh Kornbluth struggles through, and I laugh as I am exceptionally glad I never had the urge to go into journalism.

The phone rang. I groped around for the receiver, finally found it, and lifted it toward my ear, which at length I also found. "Hello, this is Jonathan Richman," a voice said. It was a voice familiar from his many albums — with a post-nasal timbre that practically cries out for Sudafed and affection. In a blurry state of excitement, I switched on my tape recorder and came up with the most professional-sounding opening line I could muster: "Oh hey, cool, Jonathan! How great to hear from you!"

"Well, thanks," he allowed.

I struggled to come up with a follow-up. At the last moment, it came to me: "Oh — hey, cool. So ... wow, excellent!"

"I call you from a pay phone in Pennsylvania Station in New York City," he said. "I'm about to take a night train, 'cause it's 2 a.m. here, almost."

Listening to the tape, I wish I'd said, at this point: "Well, Jonathan, it's a funny thing you mention that, because it's also 2 a.m. here — in nearby Hartford!" Maybe that would have made him feel a bit guilty and cause him to open up more than he did. Or maybe not. But in any case, I didn't say anything at all. So he went on: "In a little while I get on a train. But I thought I'd say hello, since I had some spare time."

"Oh, that's great!" I shot back. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, off to Boston," he said. "We just played — 'we' being the last performance of my little quartet — just played the Conan O'Brien show."

I went for the jugular: "Oh, excellent. How did it go?"

He said, "Good!" And then there was silence. I'd hoped for a longer answer, to give me a chance to clear my head. But it quickly became clear that Jonathan felt no compulsion to elaborate on his comments. Pithiness was the order of the day. Which, as a former copyeditor, I admired in a sense — though as a current interviewer, not so much.

Stalling for time, I said, "Cool, cool — excellent." But in my head, a battle plan was forming. Richman's latest album, Surrender to Jonathan, has several songs that hint strongly at a break-up of his marriage. Perhaps I could steer our colloquy in that direction.

So I said, "Your new record is really moving — because, at least based on your songs, like, you've been through some stuff, you know, with your family and ... stuff."

There was a long silence. Finally, he said, "Oh, I don't know about stuff like that." Then, using a distraction technique mastered by most parents of small children, he changed the subject: "But you like it, eh?"

...

I'm embarrassed to say that at this point, I just plain out-and-out panicked. I lost all sense of hewing to proper Woodward-and-Bernstein technique. Things clearly were not going well, and I instinctively fell back on what comes naturally: I started monologuing. I talked about my own hopes of one day raising a family. I told a long story about how I damaged my ears at an "acoustic" concert by the Violent Femmes, a band clearly influenced by Richman. I mentioned that I used to hang out with Barrence Whitfield, a blues shouter who sang back-up on one of Richman's albums. I started rattling on about the whole curse of the Boston Red Sox, his hometown team, and how it had impacted my life. Throughout, Richman occasionally uttered variants on, "Uh huh."

...

Now here's where I think he realized he was dealing with a pro. So for the next couple of minutes we had what I would almost term a linear conversation.

"Good," he said. "Okay. What's goin' on? Well, we did touring a bunch. And I just played a bunch of shows with my quartet. And after Thanksgiving, we go back to just me and Tommy Larkins on the drums."

Q. Are you happy with your new album?

A. Yeah. It came out good. I like how it came out.

Q. Uh huh. And then, the stuff with the organ that comes in sometimes is really pretty.

A. Oh good, thanks.

Q. Like, at the end of "Full Time Daddy Now"? That sort of, like, "held" thing it does at the end?

A. I'm glad you liked that.

Q. It's really neat. ... Do you do, like, a lot of takes of stuff?

A. Not usually.

Q. Yeah. Wow. ... And do you record all at once — like, everyone's playing at the same time?

A. A lot of times. Some of that album wasn't done that way. Some of it was. Um, some of it was done with everyone playing at the same time.

Q. Uh huh. It's probably more — Is it a lot more gratifying?

A. Yeah!

I'll admit that at this point I was starting to feel pretty good about the way things were going. I was asking questions; he was answering them. This was how interviews were supposed to work.

I asked him whether he had a preferred band-size for touring with.

"Yeah," he said. "Just me and a drummer. That's the way it works best."

I pressed the point: "Why do you like it better? Just 'cause you can do more, like, on the spur of the moment? It's more stripped down?"

At length he said, wearily, "I don't know. It's hard to talk about stuff like that." Then, brightening a bit, he added: "But I do know that that's my favorite way to do it!"

My will was now completely broken. Personal questions were off-limits. Musical questions were off-limits. Apparently, the only subject that could be hashed over in excruciating detail was my own life — and that's not why SALON was paying me the big bucks. I decided to give up on being a reporter and just speak from my heart.

I said, "Your stuff makes me really happy, Jonathan."

"Thank you," he said.

"And it makes my girlfriend really happy," I said.

Silence. Uh-oh. Perhaps my personal life was now verboten.

Eventually I heard him clear his throat. "Uh, I got to get going now. So I better wrap this up."

Now I'll take things that never happen to me no matter how badly I want them to for 1,000, Alex.

I asked this young gentleman, Dave Depper, how he made this happen, but as of this writing, he hasn't gotten back to me. All I know is this: It ends with Jonathan Richman playing in his backyard. So he's awesome. And I am jealous. Video evidence, courtesy of Vimeo rather than Youtube this time:

Wednesday, February 18

Jonathan, that great mystery to journalists, music hounds, and anyone who foolishly thinks that they will finally triumph over the Sisyphean task that is interviewing him, and finally figure out exactly what kind of man he is and what makes him tick. A man who is so vulnerable and open on stage, and so tight-lipped in interviews, is a sort of Holy Grail to these people who desire to know. The fact that I am more likely to be the next J.K. Rowling than Jonathan is to gush emotionally about his life certainly doesn't stop people from trying, because if there's anything that's tempting, it's trying to analyze a mystery. Sara Brickner of Seattle Music takes a look at Jonathan, and comes to the conclusion I came to long ago: Who he is lies all in the music, and if you can't figure it out from there, you'd never get it anyhow.

I know some people don't approve of analysis about Jonathan, or any music, really, but the article is well written, and I'm an English major who can't look at any sort of writing without trying to figure it out.

Clips:

Asking Jonathan Richman for insight into his music is like having to answer the Sphinx's riddle. His tight-lipped awkwardness during interviews is legendary. Countless interviewers have tried playing Oedipus only to be denied entry into Richman's head, and come away from the interview more baffled than before. Even getting an interview is difficult. If Richman consents, the interviewer must provide his or her phone number, then stay glued to the phone so as not to miss Richman's call, which could come at any time--one flummoxed journalist conducted his clumsy conversation with Richman at two in the morning...

A recent article in Cincinnati paper CityBeat called Richman "the eternally endearing man-child." Endearing? Absolutely. Childlike? Not really. When music critics discuss Richman, they mistake his songwriting's playful simplicity for childlike naiveté. Most of those writers loved him best at the helm of the original Modern Lovers, the seminal proto-punk band that made Richman a permanent fixture in the scattered history of punk rock. These writers—nay, fans—loved Richman as he was in the beginning, a bratty youth who expressed his precocious angst in songs dripping with mockery and cynicism...Unfortunately, what music fans—including music journalists—have difficulty accepting is that their beloved artists are human beings who grow up and out of their previous selves...

Richman's wisdom is that he knows it can be very difficult to restore the original visceral reaction we had to a piece of music after we've unceremoniously critiqued and torn it apart. It's a philosophy that seems right for a man who's dedicated to living in the moment, to having experiences rather than discussing them—a philosophy directly at odds with art criticism, if not the profession of journalism itself. But whether or not Richman ever sits down to a straightforward interview, the reality is that the answers to our questions have been available all along in the words of his songs.

Friday, February 13

I can't remember this being posted here, and several searches turned up nothing, so I feel as if I have to share. The glorious world of Youtube brings us yet another treasure, this time from 1985. Jonathan, being Jonathan, agrees to a on-camera interview, but with a twist: he doesn't say a word in the entire interview. Good times had by all. Though I feel a little bad for the guy interviewing him.

Thursday, February 12

So, 2 full months later, here I am again. I could give you a myriad of excuses as to why I was gone, including but not limited to: finals, computer problems, two jobs, and the holidays, but you don't really care, so I'm not going to. It is WAY too late to give a full review of the concert I went to, being as it was more than two months ago and is now old news, but let me say it was amazing as always, and even my friend who hates concerts had an incredible time. I nearly froze to death in Olympia because I am a moron, and we all almost died driving home in the whiteout. But the best part of all: I ACTUALLY MET JONATHAN RICHMAN! Yay me! He was incredibly nice, and I discovered my incredible lack of charm when I'm busy staring at the floor and being incredibly shy. But any whozle, I am back, and have now carved out a time every week to do what I'm supposed to.

Starting with, you can see the photos I have actually gotten around to uploading here.

A video of the concert I was at (Not mine, I was right in front after fighting the cold for an hour for the privilege). He was in rare form.

Disclaimer

Jojoblog is maintained with respect by fans for fans. Jonathan Richman does not use the internet or own a computer. Any communication from him to the Jojoblog community is sent through his publicist, Debbie Gulyas of Blue Arrow Records.